When opportunity knocks, you often have to think quickly and follow your heart rather than your head.

It was May 2011 when Midlander Heather Bogart heard from co-workers about three brothers living in a local foster home who were about to be split up because the state couldn't find adoptive parents.

Without much thought, the words “I want them” came out of Bogart’s her mouth, straight up from her heart. Knowing nothing about the boys, other than the fact there were 2-year-old twins and a 5-year-old, Bogart immediately felt those were her sons.

She and husband Brian Bogart, a retired Midland Police Department lieutenant, already boasted seven children -- three biological children and four others from previous marriages -- and she “fully expected him to think I had lost it,” when she called him on the phone to tell him about the boys.

To Heather’s surprise, Brian agreed “fostering-to-adopt” the brothers was something they could do and the couple immediately began researching all the training and licensing necessary to become foster parents.

Their friends and family thought they were a bit nuts for adding three more children to their family -- daughters Brittany, Mandy, Samantha and son Brady currently live at home and range in age from 18 to 6 -- but the Bogarts felt it was right.

They completed the necessary training sessions, home inspections and paperwork to become licensed foster parents -- a process that normally takes four months -- in three weeks to officially become Alex, Adam and Andrew’s foster parents on July 21, 2011, exactly two months after the Bogarts learned about them.

“My heart told me this is what we needed to do. I felt immediately that these were my kids without even knowing what they looked like. I know the Lord put them in our lives,” Heather Bogart said. “If we were not meant to be their parents, we would not have been able to get everything done we did and have the agencies work as hard as they did to get the boys with us.”

Before the day in May 2011 when “the Lord put them in our lives,” the Bogarts never knew about the option foster-to-adopt. They’d talked about becoming foster parents once or twice during the course of their marriage but never pursued it due to things they’d seen during Brian’s tenure with the Midland Police Department.

“We knew the majority went back to their family or ended up back in foster care and we decided that was not a route we could take. We couldn’t have these kids living with us, in our family, and then have to turn them back,” Heather Bogart said.

Adding three more children into their family wasn’t a seamless transition -- each time a caseworker arrived to check on the children’s adjustment, Alex ran, hid and worried he was going to get taken away -- but the Bogarts say it’s been a blessing.

“The twins didn’t speak a lot when we got them and didn’t remember anything from their biological parents or moving between foster homes,” Heather Bogart said. “Alex remembered it all and hoped he was going back to his biological mom and dad. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t live with them and we still talk about that.”

On Nov. 13, 2012, the Bogarts completed their family by adopting Alex, Adam and Andrew. Alex will begin second grade this fall and constantly asks his sisters to play with him.

The last two years have been a whirlwind for the family, but Heather Bogart said she’s thankful she took a leap of faith and followed her heart.

“As a woman in my mid-30s with four kids already, seven in my family all together, and not living in the Green Tree mansion, it would’ve been really easy to say ‘no.’ I couldn’t. I truly felt in my heart these were my sons,” Heather Bogart said.

If couples feel called to adopt or serve as foster parents, Heather Bogart said they shouldn’t let anything stop them.

“We should be able to prove people wrong. Maybe we were too old, we didn’t have a big house and we already had kids, but if you set your mind to it and you really want to do it, you can. It’s so worth it, not only for the kids, but for you too,” Heather Bogart said.

“There’s a lot of kids out there that need this. There are so many kids in this area waiting for placement in foster homes and waiting to be adopted,” Brian Bogart said.